Solar Panels in China: An Emerging U.S.-China Trade Dispute?John Mathews, The Globalist
When it comes to renewable energy, China is successfully using the technology and strategies for building markets that were pioneered in the United States. As John Mathews writes in this new report from The Globalist Research Center, the Obama Administration would be poorly advised to seek to punish China for emulating American policies so well.

... substantial progress has been achieved in the only real solution available to curb carbon emissions: building up renewable energy industries. And it is China that is leading the way in this transformation of energy and resource industries. As fast as it is building its fossil-fueled "black" economy, it is also building the world's most amazing "green" economy. Thomas Campanella was one of the few analysts to pick up on this trend. But most commentators on the issue miss this aspect.

So too, it seems, does the United States — the biggest party to miss the significance of China's rise as a green power is the United States itself. The Obama Administration sees China making extraordinary progress in building solar and wind power industries, and it interprets this, apparently, as evidence of unfair trade practices — rather than global insurance against climate change.

Let us be clear. American solar panel producers are currently experiencing difficulties because the market has not grown fast enough in the United States, and, as a result, costs have not been reduced quickly enough. Bankruptcies like that of Solyndra bear testimony to this. Now it is China that is driving market expansion, and its firms are reaping the fruits as a result. They are following the exact course laid down by America itself in one industry after another in the 20th century.

For the past five years, China has been building its renewable energy industries at a rate unprecedented in industrial history.
(19 January 2012)

'Bicycle pump' to turn wave power into clean energyDamian Carrington, The Guardian
An aquatic "bicycle pump" is set to take to the seas and turn wave power into clean electricity after being acquired by green energy company Ecotricity. The Searaser device, which pumps saltwater to an onshore generator, has been tested in prototype and praised by ministers.

Searaser uses the rise and fall of a large float to pressurise water, but unlike other wave power technologies does not generate the electricity in the hostile environment of the ocean. "If you put any device in the sea, it will get engulfed in storms, so it all has to be totally sealed," said inventor Alvin Smith. "Water and electricity don't mix – and sea water is particularly corrosive – so most other devices are very expensive to manufacture and maintain." The technology means the salt water and electricity-generating equipment never meet, and is done routinely in Japan.

The potential wave and tidal power available to the UK is considered enormous by government and could make a significant contribution to replacing coal and gas plants that emit the carbon dioxide that drives global warming. But the challenge of engineering devices that can survive in the hostile marine environment has left the technology lagging behind other renewable energy sources. Only one device, the Marine Current Turbines operation in Strangford Lough, Northern Ireland, is so far producing a meaningful amount of electricity for the National Grid...
(23 January 2012)